Hi, Richard! Awhile ago you commented about Braille music & whatnot:
For piano and organ folks one learns about intervals
and scales in the process of learning music
Sounds good to me! I'm glad I started on piano because it made the theory so much easier to understand. At beginner level the sharps & flats are the black keys. If you can't see them you can feel that they're assigned to a different position on the keyboard and, on older instruments, may be made of a different material. Even now I visualize the piano keyboard at times when I'm struggling to get a handle on a chord symbol or a theoretical concept.... :-)
often all that's written is the chord notation and the
melody line along with words.
Ah... I've seen a similar style of writing in the "fake books" used by dance band musicians. In this context, if Joe Doakes asks for a song which the musicians aren't familiar with they can probably look it up... and he will probably be quite content if the tune is more or less as he remembers it. ;-)
in my younger days often by the time I'd received my sheet
music transcriptions, unless I did it with somebody else
dictating I'd already memorized the part by just attending
rehearsals <grin>. My mother learned to read sheet music
enough to do the dictation while I transcribed to braille,
with resources she could call on the phone such as the band
director to decipher an unfamiliar symbol when needed.
If I'm expected to memorize or play by ear or copy what
somebody else has done, I feel like a fish out of water.
[The blind woman in our community band] probably did too.
INdeed, as do I often, can do it, but it isn't quite as
easy.
I hear you. I coped when somebody turned out the lights because it was somebody else's birthday & they were determined to show off a cake adorned with sparklers to best advantage, but didn't think to warn the musicians about their plans (and evidently didn't notice what *we* were doing at the time). I coped when one of my fellow teachers asked me to show her grade two students a bit more about the clarinet I used to play THE MARCH OF THE THREE KINGS behind the scenes in rehearsal for a school Christmas pageant & discovered only after my arrival in class that the kids also expected me to play something they were more familiar with. Now I know I can play TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR by ear if need be. My heart was in my boots & I still prefer to read the music. :-)
I guess that's why I'm a jazz person <g>.
Dallas is a jazz person too. That's how I know about "fake books", and that's why I was wondering how you managed to pull off a gig in a style of music you don't usually play. At a formal concert one might have a few pieces up one's sleeve... but I imagine a C/W gig as an informal situation, where one might be expected to deal with requests. Quite a challenge, in any case. :-)
Now you've got me wondering about that C/W gig in
Lethbridge.... ;-)
WAs fun and interesting for a few days. I couldn't
quite get used to the fact that if I had a drink, even
nonalcoholic while on break and wished to take it to the
bandstand I couldn't do that, one of the wait staff had
to bring me my drink on the bandstand.
We have... or used to have... a law in BC to the effect that anyone drinking an alcoholic beverage must not walk around with it in a public place, including (e.g.) a restaurant open to the general public. I think the law has now been changed. But perhaps Alberta had a similar law 'way back when... and perhaps some folks find it easier to make a blanket prohibition than to bother keeping track of whose soda, coffee, etc. may have been spiked with what. :-)
OTherwise, was just another 6 day stand in another
town basically <grin>.
Uh-huh. Dallas did that sort of thing, and you've just reminded me of an Oktoberfest experience after which he resolved not to do it again. :-))
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)